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Church gig ownage

01-20-2013, 02:28 PM

Did a little open mic youth group thing as a favour to my mom. It's the church she goes to u brought a small set up, SOS with 2 monitors, 3 mics, 3DI's etc. StudioLive 16.0.2 8 inputs going. Pretty small deal.

Wasn't really expecting to get paid, more of a favor to my mom. I seen there was a collection bowl next to my mixer and people were putting money into it. I thought hey cool, they are passing a hat around for me, that works for me.

So I get to the end of the night all out away, Andi asked "hey was there a collection bowl with some money in it?"

"oh yeah, that's for the youths"

Lol ****************me. I hope people weren't putting the money in for me. It was about a $200 gig, had it been anyone else, pretty small but still some work involved. So I think we will have to work out an arraignment. Even just a token sum of $100.

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If you're operating as a legitimate business, then I believe it's doubtful you can take some volunteer work off as a deduction... straight-up anyway. What you can do is file whatever paperwork you get as records of what added to the likely accellerated deductible depreciatable value of the equipment used when you sell that equipment, and as backing proof of your claimed milage travel.

IOW: Whatever paperwork you get from your volunteer gig adds to the legitimacy of the deductions you take for your cost of doing business including the volunteer work you do.

If you're not operating as a legitimate business, then all of the above, and likely anything else is a moot point.

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It's a legitimate business, the gig was more of a favor to my mom than anything. If we agree on a $100/night in the future, I'll be tracking mileage etc.

Interesting point though, generally I have a "typical" setup for a lot of the gigs I do. Should I be keeping track of hours used on equipment for depreciation? Or just pick a "lifetime" (4 - 5 years, according to the schedule) and go by that...

NO SIGNATURE FOR YOU!!

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Even rentals are generally not tax deductable... as the tax deduction is for out of pocket expenses or donation of material items. Very much worth checking out the details BEFORE making the claim on your return.

I just got off the phone with my mom. They really appreciated it. They had a budget meeting and they have to let the secretary go, and she will be replaced by volunteers. It was the secretary or the janitor. They are really on a tight budget. The money collected will go to pay for snacks the next time. They had mini pizzas, some muffins and pop etc. not a real extravagant spread by any means.

They were hoping to do it once every other month. It's not a real big deal. They are trying to get a youth group going, and they had 13 kids show up. There was a band from the one school, a couple girls sang along to iPod karaoke tracks, I played and sang, and there were a couple other groups as well. My neice didn't want to go, because it "wasn't cool" but she's seen some videos and realized she knew some kids that were there and she regrets not going. She is going to go to the next one and bring a couple friends.

So, I'll chalk it up to good will, and build up a little Karma with the big guy upstairs. One member who always attends is a pretty big player in the local Rodeo Associaion. I'm trying to work my way in as their go-to guy at $1200/night for lights and sound for a few events they put on. So this might help in that department. I know they are looking to replace the current guy they use.

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StratGuy22 wrote:True. I'll let these freebies slide. Not worth the hassle, I'll just keep them off the books, keep things simple.

I don't do freebies, and have turned a few down on principal alone.

But I don't mind when my mom is involved. Every other month, when there's nothing going on isn't a big deal.

Keeping it off the books is likely a disservice to you... like not keeping track of your vehicle milage. It doesn't matter if you work for free or stuff cash into a confetti cannon and blow that cash to smitheriznes... it's all basically the same: you **bleep** away your resources for somebody else's evem, and all of that is deductable collectively as your cost of doing business regardless if you keep records of how you **bleep** away your company's money (although it is a record of where the money went regardless if the investment was sound or not). There is no law that I know of that differentiates between loosing money as company by doing freebee shows or driving a comany vehicle around in circles throwing hundred dollar bills out the window... or attending trade shows, or advertising, or "development", or market ascertainment.

I don't know how many churches there are in your area but this could be a way to get your foot in the door for light installs and so on.

The other thing is that it sounds like you might have more rig than you need for the gig. I'm wondering if through donations or whatever, they could eventually purchase a small system, like a powered head and two or three YX12's....

That way you could just show up, and help control the event. You would still be building credibility and good karma without risking a can of pop getting spilled onto your gear. And no heavy lifting would be involved!